Two gigs that prove that rock and pop is never just about the music

The single most boring and pointless thing that is ever said about rock and pop — and it always comes from the Campaign For Real Rock brigade, with their alphabetised vinyl and back copies of Mojo — is that it should be ‘all about the music’. It is never, of course, all about the music, even among the Real Rockers’ heroes. An ugly Elvis would never have become Elvis; if the Stones had been clean-cut, helpful young men, they might as well have been Herman’s Hermits. Had the Clash made exactly the same records but looked and dressed like the Wurzels, elderly men would not still be banging on interminably about how Joe Strummer changed their lives.

It is, in fact, never all about the music. You can see that most clearly at shows. If it were all about the music, no one would bother with stage productions, or about interacting with the audience.